The Late Pleistocene is a geochronological age of the Pleistocene Epoch and is associated with Upper Pleistocene or Tarantian stage Pleistocence series rocks. The beginning of the stage is defined by the base of the Eemian interglacial phase before the final glacial episode of the Pleistocene 126,000 ± 5,000 years ago. The end of the age is defined as 11,700 calendar years b2k (before AD 2000). The age represents the end of the Pleistocene epoch and is followed by the Holocene epoch.
Much of the Late Pleistocene age was dominated by glaciation (the Wisconsin glaciation in North America and corresponding glacial periods in Eurasia). Many megafauna became extinct over this age, a trend that continued into the Holocene. Also, human species other than modern humans died out during the Pleistocene. Humanity spread to every continent except for Antarctica during the Late Pleistocene.
Famous quotes containing the word late:
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)